Tag: character study

The Piano Teacher
(La Pianiste)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 6 June 2025
No Comments on The Piano Teacher
(La Pianiste)
Sticky post

Director – Michael Haneke – 2001 – Austria, France – Cert. 18 – 131m

*****

A masochistic piano teacher with an abusive mother embarks on an affair with a young male student – the opening film of Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, in UK cinemas from Friday, June 6th and on BFI Player from Thursday, September 11th 2025

Warning: NSFW.

This is at once representative of Haneke’s wider body of work and very different from it.

Representative because he is one of those directors whose personal use of cinematic vocabulary has been so honed over his years of making movies that he is able to clearly and precisely articulate problematic, controversial and taboo ideas and subject matter that few directors would be able to handle without descending into exploitation or commercialism. He is a director steeped in cinema, fascinated by how the process of making a movie constructs the narrative or other viewing and listening experience, and how that is perceived and understood by audiences.

Different because although Haneke generally writes as well and directs his own films, they are mostly original pieces whereas this one is an adaptation of a book, The Piano Teacher / Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek.… Read the rest

Tags absent father, abusive mother, abusive relationship, adaptation, affair, Alfred Hitchcock, Anna Sigalevitch, Annie Giradot, apartment, applications procedure, arousal, auditorium, Austria, bath, bathroom, bedroom door, Benoît Magimel, blood, booth, broken glass, character study, cloakroom, Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, cruelty, cubicle, domestic arrangements, domineering mother, Elfriede Jelinek, extreme, father’s death, flat, France, frustrated, gifted, glass tumbler, handbag, harrowing, home late, human connection, Isabelle Huppert, lacerate, lavatory cubicle, letter, love, masochist, Michael Haneke, mother, mothers and children, mothers and daughters, mummy issues, music, music academy, musical studies, NSFW, overbearing, parents and daughters, perverse, physical encounter, pianist, piano keyboard, possessive, pupil's legs, razor blade, rebellion, recital, rehearsal, relationship, Schubert, Schumann, search handbag, secure the bedroom door, self harm, sex shop, sexual dysfunction, sexuality, split screen, student, Susanne Lothar, taboo, talent, teacher and pupil, teacher and student, The Piano Teacher, unfulfilled, used tissues, Vienna, wardrobe

Features Live Action Movies

Weapons

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 8 August 2025
No Comments on Weapons
Sticky post

Director – Zach Cregger – 2025 – US – Cert. 18 – 128m

****

One night, all but one of the children in one class in the town school disappear into the dark, leaving the townsfolk baffled as to what happened to them… – Fortean-sounding mystery is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 8th

One night at 2.17am, the 17 other kids in Alex’s class got up out of their beds, went downstairs, opened their front doors, and ran out into the night. As a child relates the incident, we observe it in flashback. The kids run with arms half outstretched at an angle, as if playing at being aeroplanes in the school playground. If you’ve seen the film’s poster, this strange angle of the arms is also apparent. As it also is in the film’s trailer, which starts with this flashback. But what is in the mind of these kids? Where are they going? To what purpose?

For that matter, why the title Weapons? I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you’ll know the answer once you’ve seen the film.

Thus begins one of the most intriguing cinematic mysteries of recent years. To unpack his prologue, writer-director Cregger opts for an astute, six-part, character-based structure.… Read the rest

Tags 17, 2.17am, addresses the meeting, Alden Erhenreich, Amy Madigan, angry, angry mob, assault, Austin Abrams, baffled, banging on her door, bar, beaten up, Benedict Wong, booze, break and enter, breaking and entering, builder, bully, business, car chase, catch, caught, character study, chase sequence, checking car doors, children, class, class teacher, classmate, Clayton Farris, confused, covered with newspaper, criminal, cutlery, dash cam, daughter of the boss, disappear, disappeared, domesticity, door paint, dream, drifter, drug addict, enigma, evening, family home, fantasy, father-in-law, fence goods, file a complaint, follow, Fortean, gang of kids, Gary Christopher, graffiti, Great Aunt, home, hordes of children, horror, human quarry, Information, interpersonal drama, into the dark, intrigue, Jennifer Garner, Josh Brolin, June Diane Raphael, kids’ rucksack, lipstick, liquor store, living room, low life, lucrative haul, Luke Speakman, missing children, missing kids, motionless people, mystery, newspaper, next fix, night, nightmare, obsession, offender, on foot, parents, parked cars, patrol, patrol car, perp, perpetrator, persons outside the house, plot the trajectory, point of view, police chief, police station, property, prying eyes, pursuing cop, pursuit, puzzle, queers his pitch, red herring, red paint, relationship, relentless, reward, reward money, rifle, rime? science fiction, school, school authorities, school. class, sci-fi, security video, sex, SF, small talk, small town, spokesman, spouse, street, swarming, Toby Huss, unperturbed, US, ushered out, vanish, Weapons, windows, witch, youth, Zach Cregger

Animation Features Live Action Movies

Joker
Folie à Deux

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 3 October 2024
No Comments on Joker
Folie à Deux
Sticky post

Director – Todd Phillips – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 138m

****1/2

Get Happy… Get Ready for the Judgement Day! Prison movie, courtroom drama, musical… the new Joker movie is something of a wild card – out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 4th

The big surprise about this sequel to Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019), if indeed it is a sequel rather than another standalone film reimagining the same character, is not one but two big surprises. In no order of anything… One, it is a courtroom drama. Two, it is a musical. This is extraordinary. Less of a surprise is that, like its predecessor, it is also a character study. More of a surprise is that it completely breaks the mould as to what a comic book superhero – or, in this case, supervillain – movie might be.

Warner Bros. / DC appear to have unearthed a unique asset. DC Comics have a long tradition of alternate histories, something capitalised on in their Elseworlds imprint which have, for example, recast Batman on different occasions in as diverse roles as an historic American Civil War participant and a vampire. Thinking about such volumes in terms of the movies, such shifts of context as a musical built around a character like Joker makes perfect sense.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, alternate histories, animation, Arkham, Arthur Fleck, Bill Smitrovich, Brendan Gleason, Catherine Keener, character study, comic book superhero, comic book supervillain, courtroom drama, crime, DC, dwarf, Elseworlds, escapism, Fleischer Brothers, guards, Harleen “Lee” Quinzel, Harley Quinn, Harry Lawtey, Harvey Dent, incarceration, Irish, jazz age, Joachim Phoenix, joke, judge, Lady Gaga, lawyer, Leigh Gill, maximum security, model prisoner, musical, neighbour, New York, pop, prison officer, pyrotechnic, romance, Russian roulette, sequel, singing workshop, single parent, songs, standards, State Hospital, Steve Coogan, suicide, Sylvain Chomet, Todd Phillips, trial, US, work colleague, Zazie Beetz

Features Live Action Movies

No Trees in the Street

Director – J. Lee Thompson – 1959 – UK – Cert. 12 – 96m

****

An essentially honest young woman living in her parents’ East End slum fails to stop her impetuous younger brother from becoming involved in the criminal underworld – one of two J. Lee Thompson movies out on UK Blu-ray, DVD and Digital

Framed by a contemporary story of plain clothes policeman Frank (Ronald Howard) trying to talk sense into a knife-carrying teenager (David Hemmings), this takes place in the East End street where the latter lives some 20 years previously. The name has changed: back then, Somerset Street was known as Kennedy Street. The policeman, who is local, has always worked this beat. 20 years ago, he was trying to prevent another young man from drifting into a life of crime.

That other young man is Tommy (Melvyn Hayes), who lives with his father, mother and older sister Hetty (Sylvia Syms) in fairly basic accommodation. It’s a poor area and honest work is hard to come by. Both brother and sister would like to find a way out, into a better life. Both have less than honest ways of doing so, in the form of local ‘businessman’ Wilkie (Herbert Lom).… Read the rest

Tags 1950s, a better life, abusive, accommodation, aerial photography, attraction, British, businessman, Carole Lesley, character study, crime, criminal, David Hemmings, East End, Elstree Studios, first starring role, French New Wave, gangland girl, good girl, Herbert Lom, honest, housing, J. Lee Thompson, Joan Miller, job, Kennedy Street, kitchen sink realism, knife, Lana Morris, Lee-Thompson Godwin/Willis, Liam Redmond, living at home, London, Melvyn Hayes, music hall, object of affection, older sister, on the beat, performer, plain clothes policeman, police beat, policeman, poor, poverty, pragmatism, production company, quirky characters, romantic interest, Ronald Howard, roots, screenplay, set, siblings, slum, smooth operator, Somerset Street, Stanley Holloway, stealing, straight and narrow, Sylvia Syms, Ted Willis, teenager, theatre, torment, troubled youth, UK, underworld, unemployment, unloading a van, unrequited love, waste ground, young offenders, young woman, younger brother

Animation Movies Shorts

The Big Snit

Director – Richard Condie – 1985 – Canada – 10 mins

*****

Both sweet and funny. The first five minutes look like exactly where we are now under the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s basically the story of an old married couple who not only love each other dearly but also get on one another’s nerves. He looks at her Scrabble tiles while she’s out of the room. He is obsessed with sawing and tunes in to the TV Show, ‘Sawing For Teens’. She, meanwhile, compulsively removes her eyes from her face and shakes them.

Five minutes in, neither of them are watching when an emergency announcement interrupts regular TV programming. If the first five minutes are about a couple isolated in their home, the second five are an end of the world scenario with nuclear missiles flying through the sky and people panicking outside in the streets. Our central couple are, however, blissfully unaware of this, caught up as they are in their own domestic squabble. Richard Condie’s drawings, colour and overall visual sense are an absolute delight and the film is hilarious. Ten minutes well spent.

Nominated for Best Animated Short at the 1985 (58th) Oscars.

Free to watch on the National Film Board of Canada’s (NFB) channel.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, Academy Awards, animation, Best Animated Short, Canada, character study, comedy, COVID-19, disaster, industrial accident, nuclear war, Oscars